Chineze Hanzi Mnemonics #13: 要(yào) / want

Are all women crazy about handbags? :)

Today's hanzi is 要 (pronounced yào) that means "to want, to desire". In the hanzi, you can recognize 女(Nǚ) that means woman.

Above that, you have something that looks like a handbag. So if I look for the link between women and handbag, what is it? They all "WANT" the latest fashionable handbag!

Chinese Hanzi Mnemonics #12: 工/work,worker

Today's Hanzi is 工 (gōng) that means work or worker depending on the context.
My tip is to think of a table/desk that is viewed from the side. Since I work at a desk, it's pretty obvious that when I see a desk, I think of work :)

工 (gōng) is a desk from the side

Chinese Hanzi Mnemonics #11:土/soil,earth

Today's Hanzi is 土(tǔ) that means soil, earth, dust.

No need to do some drawings here.

When I see 土, I immediately think of a cross on a grave. From there, I remember the Genesis 3-19 quote:
"Remember, man, you are dust and to dust you will return."

How can you be more explicit than that? :)

Chinese Hanzi Mnemonics #10: 叫 (Jiào) / "be called"

Today's Hanzi is one you will rarely write and is mostly used verbally.

It is 叫 (pronounced jiào) and that means "to be called". The basic use is for presenting yourself (your first name only, there is another word for the surname).

ex: 我叫玛丽 （Wǒ jiào mǎlì）translates literally "I am called Mary"/"My name is Mary".

To remember the Hanzi, just imagine the left square as a big open mouth (remember ...) and the right kind of 4 as a hand placed next to the mouth. 

From there you can easily imagine someone calling someone else.

Chinese Hanzi Mnemonics #9: 手 and Mickey Mouse's glove

Today's Hanzi is 手(Shǒu) that means "Hand".

The way I remember it is by figuring that the three strokes on the right are fingers, the three strokes on the left are the 3 joints you have on your hand and the vertical one is for the thumb that is opposite to your other fingers.

But really? Only 4 fingers? Just remember Mickey Mouse has only 4 because Disney said it was easier to draw and my mnemonics are all about drawing so why would we want to put 5? :D

Even better, the three left strokes are also pictured in the Mickey's glove, so for 手, just think of Mickey Mouse and you are good :)

Chinese Hanzi Mnemonics #8: 女,子,好

Today, 3 hanzi for the price of 1!

•  女 (Nǚ) means woman: think of a pregnant woman
• 子 (zi) means child: think of a baby in its cover
• 好 (hǎo) means good, fine: a woman and her child together is good, right?

Even easier is to associate all these 3 hanzi and meanings with famous representations of Saint Mary and baby Jesus such as the following ones (a classical one and a chinese one :))

 

Chinese Hanzi Mnemonics #7: 飞(Fēi)/Fly(in the air)

To remember the hanzi 飞(fēi) that means "to fly", I try to picture a kind of goose/chicken.

Pretty obvious, isn't it?

Chinese Hanzi Mnemonics #6: 电 (Benjamin Franklin involved :))

Today's Hanzi mnemonic is for 电(Diàn) that means electricity.

Look how the 电 hanzi looks like a kite. To associate it with electricity, just remember how the famous Benjamin Franklin's experiment turned out.

Chinese Hanzi Mnemonics #5: 车(Chē)/car

Chinese Mnemonics #4: 唱 (chàn:to sing)

Today's mnemonics is the one for 唱 (pronounced chàn and meaning to sing)

As you can see, the 3 squares can make you think of 3 open mouths. That's convenient because when you sing you have the mouth wide open but why 3 mouth and why 2 with tongues in the middle (you see them, right?) and 1 without?

My personal way of remembering it is to use St-Augustine's quote: "To sing is to pray twice".
So now, I have one mouth wide open on the left that is for "to sing" and two mouths with tongue on the right that come closer to talk twice and in our case "to pray twice"

Chinese Hanzi Mnemonics #3: 人(rén:person)/大(dà:big/tall)

Today, 2 simple hanzi:

The first one 人 (rén) means a person, people. The first time you see it, you may think directly of a man walking from left to right (without arms, don't ask me why :)).

The second one 大(dà) means big,tall. For me, it's like someone telling you the story of his fishing party and telling how "big" was the fish he caught by extending the arms : "Look, this was an enormous fish, I promise, Big like that!!!"

Chinese Hanzi Mnemonics #2: 一二三/123

一 yī: 1
二 èr: 2
三 sān: 3

Well, this one is pretty obvious :), think of Latin numerals rotated 90° and you are all set!

Chinese Hanzi Mnemonics #1: 买/Mǎi => buy

Thanks to HTC who offered me some Chinese classes 2 years ago, I have decided to continue learning it even though my department closed down.

Since I have always been interested by Chinese culture (especially their literature classics), I am quite dedicated to it now and have even taken the HSK2 test 2 weeks ago (a kind of TOEIC).

While learning Hanzi (Chinese ideograms) is very difficult, I have come up with some Mnemonics to help myself remember them better.

Since my Mandarin teacher find them funny, I decided to share them with you. Please be aware that I am only learning simplified hanzi and not traditional ones. Please also don't be shocked if I am not always using the Hanzi keys in the right way, sometimes it just works better for me another way. (Native/Advanced Chinese speakers will understand what I mean).

So here is my first one:

This is the Hanzi 买 (pronounce Mǎi) that means "buy/purchase" ("acheter" en français).
When I see this hanzi, I see a hand holding a chicken and since buying chicken to prepare chicken curry is one of my most frequent purchases, you can imagine how holding a chicken means "buy" :D